


Unknown

by ArgentNoelle



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 03:03:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4418642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentNoelle/pseuds/ArgentNoelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Wayne is always under scrutiny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unknown

When one is Bruce Wayne, the world will always be preoccupied with whom you choose to fuck. Models and actresses pass through the glare of the camera flash and pictures of the new couple are available on every surface. They bombard you. The gossip is relentless. The speculation. You live under a searchlight, every move you make reflecting on Gotham as a whole. Sometimes, you wonder what the reflection says about your city. But Bruce Wayne is self-centered, shallow. He tries not to let it get to him. You kiss your date politely in front of witnesses and undress behind closed curtains. Sometimes the gossip is hiding not a relationship but a lack of one. There is no substance. You remember the faces but not the names. Each one has a spark of something unique, but you date to draw attention. The searchlights see Bruce Wayne and stay mesmerized on the glamour.

In the night, Batman passes out of sight of the searchlights. The shadows are his element, the mystery another glamour. Your choices still reflect on Gotham, but you are beholden to no society. Selina, Catwoman, she is like you. Double-lived. The air between you is charged electric. You flirt as you fight; hard, and with purpose. It is a game you both revel in. It could be more. That's what scares you. Real feeling lurks under the surface. You never let her get too close.

There have been people who love you. There are always people who are attracted to you, either Batman or Bruce. They both have echoes of the same power, the same thrill. In the night it is easier to be no one, but you are still flesh and blood. The Joker taunts you mercilessly with something he calls love. You both know it is not. It is a new kind of hate, shared between your two mouths until it is purified, until the fight can resume with no mercy, and no pity. At night with the curtains closed and you do not know the room; it is not yours.

These are the nights that are the strangest. The play you put on. Sometimes there is more honesty, and then everything is brutal, unprepared. It draws blood. On nights like these there is truce and you lie in bed as though this is a relationship with real caring and both of you are amused because that is the farthest thing from what this is. That is what makes this safe. That certainty.

You are never Bruce when you are with him, but you are not Batman on nights like these. Batman has no pretense of caring. He is too honest for that. You, who can pretend to be Bruce and Batman, are adept at lies, and the Joker has no conception of truth. Your choices reflect on no one but yourselves with the windows closed and the searchlights pointed elsewhere. If only Gotham knew! But Gotham will never know; it cannot know of people who do not exist, people without a name. Gotham took Bruce and Batman gave himself to Gotham, but you can still lie here with him and there are no eyes but yourselves.


End file.
